Productive performance, carcass characteristics and economic evaluation of castrated and non-castrated crossbred bovines finished in Brachiaria decumbens pastures

Avaliou-se o efeito da castração sobre o desempenho produtivo e sobre as características de carcaça e realizou-se a avaliação econômica de bovinos terminados em pastagens de Brachiaria decumbens. Foram utilizados oito novilhos Canchim-Nelore com 14 meses de idade, sendo quatro animais castrados e quatro não-castrados, com média de peso corporal de 273,2kg. O delineamento foi inteiramente ao acaso com quatro repetições por tratamento. Os animais receberam, diariamente, 0,7% do PC de suplemento proteíco-energético e foram abatidos aos 26 meses de idade. O peso de abate e o ganho médio diário (GMD) diferiram entre castrados e não-castrados, com médias de 441,0 e 482,2kg e 0,6 e 0,7kg/dia, respectivamente. Não houve efeito da castração sobre as características avaliadas, com exceção do peso de abate, do peso da carcaça quente, 252,3 versus 229,9kg, da cor da carne, 3,25 versus 4,50 pontos e da espessura da gordura subcutânea, 0,6 versus 1,4mm, respectivamente, para não-castrados e castrados. A lucratividade por animal e por hectare foi de 14,5 e 15,8% para não-castrados e 4,5 e 5,8% para castrados, respectivamente. Sugere-se a utilização de bovinos não-castrados suplementados em pastagens de Brachiaria decumbens.The effect of the castration on the productive performance and carcass characteristics was studied, as well as, the economic evaluation of finished bovines raised on Brachiaria decumbens pastures. Eight Canchim-Nellore steers aging 14-months-old were used, being four castrated and four non-castrated, averaging 273.2kg body weight. It was used a completely randomized design with four repetitions per treatment. The animals received 0.7% of their body weight of proteic-energetic supplement and were slaughtered at 26 months of age. The weight at slaughtering and the average daily weight gain differed between castrated and non-castrated, averaging 441.0 and 482.2kg, and 0.6 and 0.7kg/day, respectively. No effects of the castration on carcass characteristics were observed, except for weight of hot carcass, 252.3 versus 229.9kg; meat color, 3.25 versus 4.50 points; and subcutaneous fat thickness, 0.6 versus 1.4mm; respectively, for non-castrated and castrated. The profitabilities per animal and hectare were 14.5 and 15.8% for non-castrated and 4.5% and 5.8% for castrated, respectively. It is suggested the raised of non-castrated bovines supplemented on Brachiaria decumbens pastures

Abnormal resistive switching in electrodeposited Prussian White thin films

Prussian White (PW) layers were deposited on Au/Cr/Si substrates by electrodeposition and characterized by different techniques. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images and Raman mapping reveal a uniform and homogeneous deposit while scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) images disclose the grain boundary pattern and the thickness of 300 nm of the PW layer. Resistive switching (RS) effect with an ON/OFF ratio of about 102 was observed. The RS mechanism was investigated from the log-log currentvoltage plots. Ionic conduction was observed with an activation energy of 0.4 eV that could be associated with potassium ions as possible charge carriers at the grain boundaries. The endurance characteristics were investigated and a stable abnormal RS was observed for consecutive 500 cycles. Moreover, the retention was also evaluated and the high resistive state (HRS) and low resistive state (LRS) were stable up to 1000 s.The authors acknowledge TESCAN, Zeiss, and WITec for assis-tance during electron microscopy and Raman imaging of the samples and LCME/UFSC for the EDS measurements (LCME-MAT-2021) . We thank D. Hildebrand for his technical assistance. This research was supported by the funding agencies: CNPQ, FINEP, CAPES (finance code 001) , DAAD (project 249302) , FAPESP (process 2013/07296, 2017/20809-0, 2020/04721-8) , and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in the framework of the Strategic Funding Contract UIDB/04650/2020

Annealing induced effect on the physical properties of ion-beam sputtered 0.5 Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 – 0.5 (Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3-δ ferroelectric thin films

This work reports thermal annealing induced effect on the structural, optical, chemical and ferroelectric properties of ion-beam sputtered lead-free ferroelectric 0.5 Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 – 0.5 (Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3-δ (0.5BZT–0.5BCT) thin films. X-ray diffraction studies reveal that the tetragonality increases with the annealing temperature (Ta), while photoluminescence and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies confirm that this effect is associated with the annihilation of the oxygen vacancies as well as changes in the Ba2+ coordination. The films annealed at 750 °C show a remarkable remnant polarization of Pr = 45.0 μC/cm2, with a coercive field of 32 kV/cm. The temperature dependence of the spontaneous polarization of the 0.5BZT–0.5BCT film reveals a mean field behavior of the polarization and the fatigue study reveals that Pr only decreases 3% after passing 109 cycles. Therefore the high remnant polarization and its high Pr stability make these films as promising candidates for memory applicationsPortuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in the framework of the Strategic Funding Contract UID/FIS/04650/2013; (ii) Project Norte-070124-FEDER-000070 Nanomateriais Multifuncionais. The author J.P.B.S. is grateful for financial support through the FCT Grant SFRH/BPD/92896/2013. The authors acknowledge the CERIC-ERIC Consortium for access to experimental facilities and financial support under proposal CERIC-ERIC-20167010. The author K.C. Sekhar acknowledge UGC and DST-SERB, Govt. of India for the funds through the grant no. F.4-5(59-FRP/2014(BSR)) and ECR/2017/000068info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effects of oxygen partial pressure on the ferroelectric properties of pulsed laser deposited Ba0.8Sr0.2TiO3 thin films

The Ba0.8Sr0.2TiO3 thin films were grown on the Pt–Si substrate at 700 °C by using a pulsed laser deposition technique at different oxygen partial pressure (PO2) in the range of 1–20 Pa and their properties were investigated. It is observed that the PO2 during the deposition plays an important role on the tetragonal distortion ratio, surface morphology, dielectric permittivity, ferroelectric polarization, switching response, and leakage currents of the films. With an increase in PO2, the in-plane strain for the BST films changes from tensile to compressive. The films grown at 7.5 Pa show the optimum dielectric and ferroelectric properties and also exhibit the good polarization stability. It is assumed that a reasonable compressive strain, increasing the ionic displacement, and thus promotes the in-plane polarization in the field direction, could improve the dielectric permittivity. The butterfly features of the capacitance–voltage (C–V ) characteristics and the bell shape curve in polarization current were attributed to the domain reversal process. The effect of pulse amplitude on the polarization reversal behavior of the BST films grown at PO2 of 7.5 Pa was studied. The peak value of the polarization current shows exponential dependence on the electric field.The authors, J.P.B.S. thanks FCT for the financial support (grant SFRH/BD/44861/2008). K. C. S. thanks FCT for the Post-doc grant (SFRH/BPD/68489/2010). This work has been partially funded by: (i) FEDER through the COMPETE Program and by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in the framework of the Strategic Project PEST-C/FIS/UI607/2011; and (ii) European COST Actions MP0901-NanoTP and MP0903-NanoAlloy